"Not so many as where you are."
Miss Lane seized his hand, made unheard-of efforts, and mounted the rock, then looked down complacently.
"Why, how slow you are!" she cried. "Just jump up as I did. Oh—what was that—a rattle?"
"Yes; Rig's tin pail against his buttons," said Magnus, laughing.
"I wish he'd give it to someone who does not wear buttons. Must people always carry tin pails when they go out to enjoy themselves?"
"You'll like it at the top. And we're almost there now."
Trees grew shorter and scarcer, rocks stood up in bolder self-assertion; and, with a last steep climb, the grey and the red came out upon the mountain's lovely head, and, after a shout of victory, sat down to look and breathe. Oh, how wonderfully fair earth is from the top of Crownest!
On the west, beyond the dipping hillside, the broad valley lay in seven shades of green—slope beyond slope—till it touched the soft horizon blue. To the north, the far-off Catskill range rose, shoulder to shoulder, from the more level land, a great lonely pile. Then on the south, beyond the locked-in Highlands, Tappan lay shimmering in the sunlight, a blue inland sea; while just across the river on its eastern shore, the bluff ends of the mountains fell apart, and you could see the long valleys between; the grey-green ridges like grim ribs, running eastward towards the Connecticut line. The river itself was decked with various craft; over all there wandered a faint, fitful north breeze.
From their vantage ground Magnus and his companion watched the toiling party below, for whom neither earth nor sky had any special charm just then. Privately Mrs. Newcomb was assuring herself, that the next time she gave a picnic it would not be on the top of Crownest; the girls might say what they liked. And Mr. Clinker was inwardly chafing against the good lady's value in avoirdupois. (Quite literally, sometimes, when on a bad bit of road she surged up against him.) Rig was laughing to himself at them, at Magnus, and at things generally; and aloud at the sallies of Miss Freak; while the last couples of the party fumed a little at the slow progress and the narrow trail. How came those two to get ahead? There they sat, in triumphant ease, the grey and the red.
"You men are a very peculiar set," Miss Lane said suddenly.